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Fountains & A Festival: Avignon & Aix
Aix-en-Provence is known to some as the “city of water” and to others as the “city of a thousand fountains”, both nicknames stemming from the numerous natural springs dotted around town. In fact, there were once more than a hundred fountains here, though probably not a thousand, and nowadays something like 30 remain. Losing ourselves in these quaint streets, emerging from beneath plane trees to bright sunlight and from narrow alleys to open squares is utterly delightful; Aix is so very attractive, a lovely, welcoming town. Each of the fountains in Aix tells a story, each has its own character, but perhaps the most quirky is Fontaine Moussue, the “mossy…
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Beautiful Places #3: Valbona
Quite some distance before we made it to Valbona, the hair on the back of our neck was starting to stand on end, such was the magnificence of the scenery unfolding around us as we left the major roads and headed northwards towards the Accursed Mountains in northern Albania. The road to Valbona hugs the river as it cuts through the deep gorge, climbing steadily until the canyon opens out to the plateau within which lies the village itself, a village which is both tiny and unassuming, with precious little which you could call civilisation. But its beauty is in its setting. We have visited quite a few mountain village…
